James Brown commanded a company of Virginia sharpshooters in an expedition against the Indians in 1789. He served as secretary to Isaac Shelby, the first governor of Kentucky, in 1792. On June 5, 1792, Shelby nominated Brown as Secretary of State; he was confirmed by the state senate and served until October 13, 1796. Soon after the United States made the Louisiana Purchase, Brown moved to New Orleans, where he was appointed in 1804 as secretary of the Territory of Orleans. He served from October 1 to December 11 of that year, when he was appointed as U.S. Attorney-General for the Territory. Brown became one of the wealthiest planters and slave owners on the German Coast. His extensive plantation produced sugar through the use of slave labor. In January 1811, some slaves from James Brown's plantations joined in the 1811 German Coast uprising. One was the African-born warrior Kook, who became one of the insurrection's leaders. It was the largest slave rebellion in U.S. history, but was soon suppressed. The insurgents killed only two white men, but between the one battle, subsequent summary executions by militia members, and executions after tribunals of slaveowners, ninety-five black men died. Some of the men were from Saint-Domingue, brought to Spanish Louisiana several years earlier by white French refugees, as well as by refugee gens de couleur, who fled the violence and expropriations of the Haitian Revolution. Others were slaves imported directly from Africa. Brown was elected as a Democratic Republican to the United States Senate on December 1, 1812, to fill the vacancy caused by the resignation of Jean Noël Destréhan, whose slaves were also involved in the quashed uprising. Brown served in the U.S. Senate from February 5, 1813, until March 3, 1817. The Louisiana legislature refused to reelect him, but in 1819 he was elected again to the U.S. Senate as a Democratic-Republican aligned with Southern Jeffersonians. During the Missouri Crisis, he favored the unrestricted expansion of slavery west of the Mississippi River. He served from March 4, 1819, until December 10, 1823, when he resigned. During his tenure, Brown was the chairman, Committee on Foreign Relations. With the consent of the Senate, the President appointed Brown U.S. Minister to France, and he served 1823-1829. Returning to the U.S., he settled in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. He agreed to support a Quaker appeal for funds to aid an American free black settlement in Ontario, Canada, known as the Wilberforce Colony. It had been started by free blacks from Cincinnati, Ohio, who emigrated to Canada in reaction to discriminatory laws and especially a highly destructive riot against them in 1829. Brown was elected a member of the American Antiquarian Society in 1814.
Death and legacy
Brown survived his wife Nancy, as well as a Philadelphia cholera outbreak in 1831, but died in Philadelphia in 1835. After a service at its St. Stephen's Church, he was buried in the vault of nearby Christ Church, Philadelphia.
